Experimenting with Uel Brew 1000!
Before this summer, we had always brewed our cold brew as a concentrate. It was just the thing to do. The industry standard is to brew strong and then dilute that concentrate with water 1:1 for a ready-to-drink cold brew. But this practice of diluting concentrate, it turns out, is actually pretty wasteful—the grounds suck up too much moisture.

Coffee grounds absorb about twice their weight in liquid, and once absorbed that liquid is lost to us, the brewers. When we brew as concentrate, it requires a lot of ground coffee, and so that means a lot of our delicious final product is stuck, held captive in the grounds—even if you wait and/or try to squeeze it out. For example: every pound of coffee used in brewing concentrate requires 12 cups of water and yields about 8 cups of concentrate (1 gallon of cut ready-to-drink cold brew): those other 4 cups of liquid have been irrevocably sucked into the grounds. By re-working the ratio to directly produce a ready-to-drink cold brew, we now get 23% more cold brew with the same extraction and even a bit stronger too! (As tested by our refractometer.) This has lead to a better use of our precious ZING blend, roasted by Tinker Coffee Co. up in Indianapolis. So try brewing with our new ratio and let us know what you think!